View photos of Gary Player throughout his Hall of Fame career, including nine major victories.
Gary Player is a golf giant.
A nine-time major champion, Player earned the nickname “The Black Knight” thanks to his dashing looks and outfit choices on the course.
Born on Nov. 1, 1935, and with more than 150 worldwide career wins to his name, Player has been much more than just a champion golfer. He has dedicated his life to growing the game throughout his native South Africa and the world.
Player became just the fourth golfer to earn a career grand slam with his win at the 1965 U.S. Open at Bellerive. From there, he would go on to five more majors. As a senior, Player would tack on nine more major championships.
Following his playing career, Player continued his work as a global ambassador for the game. Sharing stories, swing tips and even showing off his fitness prowess, Player has been an endearing figure within the game throughout eight decades.
From helping underprivileged children across the globe to having a hand in designing over 400 golf courses, Player has made an impact well past his wins on Tour.
“Neither of the 1974 Masters Trophy nor the 1974 Open Trophy were sold by me or by one of my companies.”
The sale of Gary Player’s Claret Jug from winning the 1974 British Open is being contested by… Gary Player.
As reported on Monday, Golden Age Auctions sold a replica Claret Jug, which had been purchased by Player’s company, Black Knight International, and had been on display at its office – first in Palm Beach, Florida, and later at The Cliffs in South Carolina. It has been auctioned for the sum of $481,068. The auction attracted 39 bids in all, with the high bidder exceeding the previous bid by $80,000.
Player earned the trophy for his wire-to-wire win at Royal Lytham & St. Annes Golf Club, his third triumph at the British Open in a Hall of Fame career that included nine major titles.
Player read several of the stories noting the sale of the jug, a 90 percent-sized replica version of the original given to the champion for permanent keeping. It had been in the custody of Player’s design company until a previous sale during COVID-19 and controlled by his son, Marc, his ex-manager. The two had a falling out several years ago that ended up in the courts with Gary Player awarded $5 million in a legal dispute over unpaid royalties. In 2022, he filed a separate lawsuit against son, Marc, and grandson, Damian, alleging they had sold or tried to sell memorabilia despite an agreement requiring the items be returned.
“I feel that it is necessary for me to correct inaccuracies contained in those articles,” Player wrote in a post on X, the former Twitter. “Neither of the 1974 Masters Trophy nor the 1974 Open Trophy were sold by me or by one of my companies. Each of these trophies was granted to me for my sole use and enjoyment as winner of the respective majors. The person entrusted with ensuring the safekeeping of these items on my behalf and who was tasked with using them to enshrine my golfing achievements has done the opposite by offering them for sale without my consent and against my wishes. My legal team is taking appropriate steps to resolve this unlawful situation.”
Player issued a similar statement when the trophy was originally sold during a public auction in November 2020 for $143,020. The value of collectibles has exploded in recent years, and Player’s Claret Jug has turned a tidy profit for its owners.
“Unfortunately Mr. Player’s statements about the sale of replica trophies are not accurate. Shortly after the COVID pandemic began, Gary Player’s company had serious cash flow issues and reached out to a number of auction houses to sell its collection of replica trophies in order to meet payroll,” Ryan Carey, President of Golden Age Auctions said in a statement provided to Golfweek. “Golden Age then facilitated a private transaction between Gary Player’s Black Knight International company and a private buyer. The net proceeds of this sale were paid directly to Gary Player’s Black Knight International. The private buyer then sold some of the trophies, including this exact same replica 1974 Claret Jug at public auction in November 2020. Mr. Player was well aware of those sales back in 2020, and he was aware of them when he made these contradictory statements today.
“While Golden Age has the utmost respect for what Mr. Player accomplished as a golfer, his inaccurate statements are simply not acceptable under any circumstances.”
The sale this week marks the fourth time the replica trophy has been sold – twice publicly and twice privately. The latest owner of Player’s trophy has not been revealed.
Marc Player wrote in a direct message that the latest sale “has absolutely nothing to do with me” and while stating he had no “official” comment, he noted, “I find it rather strange that my father would contest it as he already sold his original Grand Slam trophy collection to Johann Rupert in South Africa [and on display there at Leopard Creek]. Perhaps best to reach out to whomever sold it for proper provenance.”
The year 1974 was a great one for Gary Player in the major championships.
The year 1974 was a great one for Gary Player in the major championships.
He won the Masters and Open Championship at Royal Lytham & St. Annes. He also placed seventh at the PGA Championship and tied for eighth at the U.S. Open. It was the only time the nine-time major champion career won two majors in the same year.
And 50 years after his victory in the United Kingdom, his replica Claret Jug has sold for nearly half a million dollars.
Golden Age Golf Auctions posted the trophy on July 18 with a starting bid of $5,000. Twenty-nine bids and 11 days later, it has sold for $481,068.
The website stated the Claret Jug is a 90 percent scale of the real Claret Jug that every Champion Golfer of the Year gets to parade around for a year. It is the first time one has been sold by the website, which has also a Tiger Woods backup putter and other golf memorabilia.
Player’s victory in the’74 Open was memorable because he led wire-to-wire and won by four shots. It was his third Open title and eighth major victory.
Wise words from three of the all-time greats, who still care deeply about the state of professional golf.
AUGUSTA, Ga. – Jack Nicklaus, Gary Player and Tom Watson want to see the PGA Tour-LIV Golf dispute get settled.
Speaking during a joint press conference after the three legends hit the ceremonial tee shots to the 88th edition of the Masters, Watson shared a special moment during the Champions Dinner, which brought together 33 of the past winners – seven of them members of LIV – in their Green Jackets and Augusta National Golf Club Chairman Fred Ridley, on Tuesday evening.
“We were sitting down and we were having great stories about Seve Ballesteros and people were laughing and talking. I said to Mr. Ridley, I said, ‘Do you mind if I say something about being here together with everybody?’ He said, ‘Please do.’
“And I got up and I said – I’m looking around the room, and I’m seeing just a wonderful experience everybody is having. They are jovial. They are having a great time. They are laughing. I said, ‘Ain’t it good to be together again?’ ” Watson recalled.
He added that he hoped the players would take it upon themselves to reach a resolution, sooner rather than later.
“We have to do something,” Watson said. “We all know it’s a difficult situation for professional golf right now. The players really kind of have control I think in a sense. What do they want to do? We’ll see where it goes. We don’t have the information or the answers. I don’t think the PGA Tour or the LIV Tour really have an answer right now. But I think in this room, I know the three of us want to get together. We want to get together like we were at that Champions Dinner, happy, the best players playing against each other. The bottom line: that’s what we want in professional golf, and right now, we don’t have it.”
Nicklaus echoed that sentiment and placed his trust in PGA Tour Commissioner Jay Monahan to lead the way.
“The best outcome is the best players play against each other all the time. That’s what I feel about it. And how it’s going, I don’t know, I don’t want to be privy to it,” Nicklaus said. “I talked to Jay not very long ago, and I said, ‘Jay, don’t tell me what’s going on because I don’t want to have to lie to the press and people that ask me questions.’ I said, ‘How are you doing?’ He said, ‘We’re doing fine.’ I said, “OK, that’s all I want to know.’ If Jay thinks we’re doing fine, we’ll get there, I think we’ll get there. And I certainly hope that happens, the sooner the better.”
Player touched on how that division in golf and attention on the greed in the game has turned off the public. But he also noted that the players who had stayed loyal to the PGA Tour needed to be compensated in some way (which they will be through the infusion of capital into the Tour’s new for-profit arm from private equity investment.)
“Anytime in any business whatsoever, not only in the golf business, there’s confrontation, it’s unhealthy. You’ve got to get together and come to a solution. If you cannot, it’s not good. The public don’t like it, and we as professionals don’t like it, either,” Player said. “But it’s a big problem because they paid all these guys to join the LIV Tour fortunes, I mean, beyond one’s comprehension and the players that were loyal, three of us and others. Now these guys come back and play, I really believe the players, that if they are loyal, should be compensated in some way or another. Otherwise, there’s going to be dissension.”
Wise words from three of the all-time greats, who still care deeply about the state of professional golf.
After Player found the short grass, Jack took his turn.
“Watch out to the left and right,” Nicklaus said.
There was no need.
The six-time Masters winner striped his ball down the left side of No. 1, and then gave way to Tom Watson.
“Just one thing,” said Watson, as he prepared to strike his shot. “Jack, you’ve never hit a hook off this tee in your life.”
Nicklaus, laughing, said, “That was a neck pull.”
On hand for the ceremony were former PGA Tour commissioner Tim Finchem, and current head man Jay Monahan.
Also in attendance were past Masters champions Nick Faldo and Tommy Aaron, as well as CBS announcer Jim Nantz.
Nantz, who has covered the Masters since 1989, calls the annual tradition, “My favorite moment in golf.”
“It’s such a rich moment of nostalgia,” Nantz said. “It’s a passage of time. You look at these champions — these iconic figures who you looked up to so much in your youth. Every year, this ceremony is a moment of reflection.”
Three legends of the game have officially started the 2024 Masters
AUGUSTA, Ga. — It was pushed back a couple of hours but Jack Nicklaus, Gary Player and Tom Watson took to the first tee at Augusta National Golf Club to be the honorary starters once again ahead of the 2024 Masters Tournament.
It’s a time-honored tradition at Augusta National, with the three legends of the game taking to the first tee to officially start the tournament each year. Due to some inclement overnight and early morning weather, the threesome were on the tee box at 10:10 a.m., with Gary Player getting the honors. Jack Nicklaus, a six-time Masters Green Jacket winner, going second, with Tom Watson, the newest addition to the starters bringing up the rear.
Next week the European-based tour heads to Dubai for its season finale DP World Tour Championship.
Max Homa was a winner on Sunday, but it wasn’t on the PGA Tour.
The 32-year-old is sitting pretty in Sun City, South Africa, after picking up his first international win at the Nedbank Golf Challenge, the penultimate event of the DP World Tour season.
Playing on an invitation, Homa fired a 6-under 66 at Gary Player Country Club to finish at 19 under for the tournament, four shots ahead of runner-up Nicolai Hojgaard (68). This weekend was Homa’s first appearance since his 3½-point performance in his Ryder Cup Debut last month in Italy.
“It’s kind of what you dream of, you want to be in the fight and it was just fun to kind of close it out at the end,” Homa said. “It was one of those weeks the ball wanted to go in when it needed to go in.”
Homa is a six-time winner on the PGA Tour and last claimed victory at the 2023 Farmers Insurance Open. In 25 events last season, the Cal product earned two wins, one runner-up and 18 top-25 finishes. He finished ninth in the FedEx Cup standings and earned $10,761,517 in official prize money.
Thorbjorn Olesen (69) finished third at 14 under, with Justin Thomas (66) in fourth at 12 under. Dan Bradbury (71) rounded out the top five at 11 under. Two-time defending champion Tommy Fleetwood (72) finished T-12 at 7 under.
Next week the European-based tour heads to Dubai for its season finale DP World Tour Championship.
During the first-round broadcast of the DP World Tour’s Nedbank Golf Challenge in South Africa, that country’s own Gary Player stopped by to take in the action and joined the broadcast.
The three-time Masters champion said he loved that Augusta National extended a membership offer to arguably the greatest women’s player of all time, Annika Sorenstam (a story first reported by Golfweek‘s Adam Schupak).
“To see Annika Sorenstam made a member of Augusta, they never allowed women, and now to see a woman be a member, I think it’s fantastic,” Player said. “She’s the best lady golfer in the world, or was, wonderful to see, isn’t it?”
Sorenstam isn’t the first woman to earn a green jacket, as she joined Condoleezza Rice, Darla Moore and others.
However, when the Augusta National Women’s Amateur was mentioned as another great thing Augusta National does for the women’s game, Player quickly retorted, “I don’t agree with you on that.”
“It’s not very pleasant to watch somebody stand over the ball for half an hour,” said Jack Nicklaus.
When Jack Nicklaus says slow play is a problem, you know the topic has officially jumped the shark.
Nicklaus was asked to opine on the pace of play of professional golf during a press conference on Saturday at The Woodlands in Houston ahead of competing in the Greats of Golf, a nine-hole exhibition played during the Insperity Championship on PGA Tour Champions.
“They do have a problem on the Tour today,” Nicklaus said. “The golf ball is a part of the problem. The longer the golf ball goes, the longer the courses get, the more you have to walk, the longer it’s going to take. I don’t think it’s good for the game. (The USGA and R&A have proposed) bringing the golf ball back (and reducing the distance it can travel). I think it’s a good start. It’s the first time they’ve done that in forever. We’ll see where it goes with that.
Nicklaus has long been a proponent of rolling back the golf ball but acknowledged that slow-play penalties are also overdue to be handed out.
“It’s got to be equitable,” Nicklaus added, “but they need to make an example and stay with it. It’s not very pleasant to watch somebody stand over the ball for half an hour.”
Slow play has made headlines recently after weather delays forced the Masters to go to threesomes and split tees in the final round and the glacial pace was exposed on TV. Brooks Koepka, who played in the final group, called out Patrick Cantlay, who also took his time on multiple occasions at the RBC Heritage the following week but pointed out that he was never put on the clock in either instances. Slow play has been a chronic problem in the game and rarely gets addressed in any meaningful way. But that wasn’t the case in Nicklaus’s rookie year.
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The Golden Bear always was a deliberate player but he learned early in his career that his pace of play was too slow. He was penalized two strokes during the second round at the 1962 Portland Open by PGA official Joe Black. Nicklaus still rolled to a six-stroke victory but he learned an important lesson that day.
“It was the best thing that ever happened to me,” Nicklaus said, noting that Black told him, “Jack, you can take as long as you want over the golf ball to play but be ready when it’s your turn.”
“I always tried to stay out of everybody’s way,” Nicklaus continued. “I didn’t want to bother anybody lining up my putt while they were lining up their putt so I stayed back. I didn’t want to start walking my yardages off. I took a while over the golf ball but that wasn’t the problem. The problem was being ready to play. I realized after playing on the Tour for a while that it’s also a courtesy to the field. It’s not fair to do that.”
Nicklaus also blamed caddies for being part of the problem.
“By the time they get through talking, I couldn’t hit a shot anyway,” he said. “It’s a problem.”
The Greats of Golf gathered on Saturday, April 29, 2023, at the Insperity Invitational and played a nine-hole exhibition. (Courtesy Insperity Invitational)
Gary Player echoed that sentiment. “It’s just not fair to the others to be taking the amount of time,” he said. “You are allocated a certain amount of time and you have to adhere to that or you should be penalized.”
Player noted that golfers have three practice rounds and then they spend too much time around the green doing Aim Point and studying their yardage books. “You didn’t see Bobby Locke, Ben Crenshaw or Tiger Woods doing that,” Player said.
“I read the green from 50 yards,” Lee Trevino added. “Keep staring at it while you’re walking you can see every curve on that green. Before you ever get there to read that putt you know exactly the direction it’s going.”
Annika Sorenstam said the problem with pace of play starts at the junior level.
“The juniors watch the pros and they see the Masters and see how much time the pros take and do the same thing,” she said. “I know the AJGA does a good job, but then they get to college and it all goes away and then they turn pro. I think it is a root problem from the beginning.
“Nobody enjoys it and it’s not fair. We’re running out of time, time is a precious commodity, right, so I think start at the very beginning and teach them to hit when you’re ready and go. The more we think, the more complicated it gets, right, so just hit and go.”
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If you’re looking to spend a day watching 16 legends of the game tee it up in the same event, you’re in luck.
This year’s Folds of Honor Greats of Golf exhibition at The Woodlands in Texas is loaded with some of the best players of all time. During the second round of the Insperity Invitational on the PGA Tour Champions, Jack Nicklaus, Annika Sorentam, Gary Player, Lee Trevino and 12 others will play in a nine-hole four-team scramble.
“We feel very privileged to have the opportunity to bring the greatest names in the game of golf back to the Houston area thanks to the support of our new partner, Folds of Honor, during this milestone celebration for our tournament. This collection of legends are true ambassadors and role models in our sport,” said Bryan Naugle, Executive Director, Insperity Invitational, in a press release. “Not only is this a great group of golfers, they are incredible people and special role models for all of us. Reuniting these extraordinary ambassadors of our game has become a staple of tournament week. They provide hours of entertainment and a lifetime of memories for our fans each year.”
Team 1: Sorenstam, Nicklaus, Player, Trevino Team 2: Pat Bradley, David Graham, Tony Jacklin, Tom Kite Team 3: Nancy Lopez, Dave Stockton, Larry Nelson, Hale Irwin Team 4: Juli Inkster, Ben Crenshaw, Bill Rodgers, Fuzzy Zoeller
In all, the group of 16 players accounts for 234 PGA Tour wins, 156 LPGA wins and 77 major championships. Thirteen of the participants are members of the World Golf Hall of Fame.
